The robots did not even use the cathode guns in their talons. They dropped thick about us, a wall of flashing silver. They dived on argent wings. White twisting ropes snatched at our weapons. The guns of Kel Aran must have destroyed a dozen; the rest of us perhaps accounted for as many more—but they were nothing against the hundreds that survived.
One fell upon me, terrible in that bloody light, mysterious in its quick counterfeit of life, beautiful in its silver grace. A white tentacle whipped away my weapon. Argent snakes swiftly wrapped my arms, my ankles, my waist, my throat.
I fought those coiling arms. They contracted ruthlessly, more cruel than fetters of steel. My breath sighed out, and my lungs labored in vain. Blood hammered in my brain. My eyes dimmed, swelled in their sockets.
Alertly, the eyes of the monster were watching me. Bright and hard as some blue crystal, they yet looked oddly alive. In that white, clean-molded, bird-like head, they were clear and beautiful. Perhaps, the vagrant thought crossed my reeling mind, such a machine, in cosmic justice, had as much right as man to survive...
"Kel!" Verel's thin, tortured cry cut through the roaring in my ears. "Kel—the ship!"
I twisted my head, against the smooth deadly coils of cold metal about my throat. They seemed to relax a little. My eyes cleared. I looked for the little Barihorn, behind us. And it was gone! That dark-shining surface, where it had been, was empty!
Helpless in the tentacles of another robot, the Earth girl was staring down into that black mirror.
"The ship!" she was sobbing. "It—it fell!"
I saw it, then, beneath us—fast-dropping into that depthless pool of darkness. It was sucked down, spinning end over end, far faster than it should have fallen. It became the merest whirling sliver, and was lost in the dull round reflection of the crimson sky.